I consider myself a thrifty shopper when it comes to clothes. I admit when I find something cute on a clearance rack, I get a surge of excitement. However, shopping for maternity clothes proved to be a whole different ball game. First, I never once found any maternity clothes on sale. I paid full price my entire pregnancy. Second, when I tried to use a coupon on maternity clothes, it was nicely pointed out that the tiny print at the bottom excluded them. After that, I noticed every coupon I ran into excluded maternity clothes. Maternity clothes were proving to be a specialty product. Stores did not have to mark them down in order to sell.
When I mentioned this to a coworker, she recommended stopping by a couple nearby thrift stores that specialized in maternity and infant clothing. I stopped at these stores on my way home from work about once a week. During my pregnancy, I found one pair of shorts, a pair of capris, and one pair of dress pants. Yes, they were significantly less, between $5-$12 each, but they were hard to find. The maternity clothes at these stores had been picked over and it’s easy to understand why. A lot of other women were having the same problem I was, unexpectedly having to pay full price for maternity clothes, and it was getting expensive quick.
This is why I’d recommend a budget for maternity clothes of around $500. If I had been a little savvier, I figure I could’ve purchased all mine for around that much. This includes both professional and casual clothes. If you only need casual clothes, you could cut back some. While you can cut costs by purchasing a belly band that fits over unzipped pants, I kept noticing my zipper hanging out and my belly band riding up. I know this method works for a lot of women, but I gave up on it and purchased traditional maternity pants at about $35 each.
I wore a lot of my regular shirts and simply stretched them out. This was cost effective until after childbirth when I had to buy new shirts because they looked horrible without a pregnant belly.
A couple other cost areas I didn’t see coming were bras and underwear. Yep, I said it. I went through three different bra sizes and two different underwear sizes during pregnancy. And if that wasn’t enough, I found out I needed nursing bras and tanks for breastfeeding after delivery too.
Then there came the moment that my feet hurt so bad while walking at the mall, I went and bought an expensive pair of comfort sandals. I was so miserable that after my purchase, I changed my shoes right there in the store. To me this was a necessity, so if you can, work it into your budget.
These were some of the things that caught me off guard. Hopefully, my experience will you help you better plan on what to expect when budgeting for maternity clothes.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Financial Planning for Pregnancy
Pregnancy was an incredibly exciting time in life for me, but the financial impacts were a bit daunting. As a financial analyst, I wanted to plan and figure out my financial attack beforehand. What I found was little to no information on this. The age-old saying, “it will happen, when it happens” seemed to trump any planning. When my doctor informed me that the majority of women will get pregnant within three months of trying, I was a little surprised. I thought it took a bit more effort than that, but for me it didn’t. I was pregnant within three months, just like the majority of other women, the rule not the exception.
For financial reasons, this is great. It gives many women a choice over when to get pregnant. I’ll write on financial planning for IVF and other pregnancy options later on.
Why is this important financially? Three big reasons, medical insurance deductible, FMLA, and short-term disability insurance.
First, most medical insurance deductibles reset in January, while others reset at other times in the year. Being able to conceive in three months, gives women the option to plan their entire pregnancy under one deductible. For example, if you wanted to have a baby in 2015 and you have a calendar year medical deductible, you could get pregnant between November 2014 through March 2015 and almost all your costs would go toward one deductible during 2015.
Note that your first doctor appointment after conceiving is six weeks after you have a positive pregnancy test.
If you have a high deductible, like 5,000 or 10,000, this is well worth planning out.
Second, FMLA lets you take off twelve weeks of leave from your employer without repercussions. To qualify for FMLA, you need to work for your employer for twelve months before taking leave. For more information on the exact rules, go here. http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/benefits-leave/fmla.htm
Third, short-term disability is usually provided through your employer and will pay you 60% of your income while you are out on leave. Most policies have a 9-10 month probation period, which means you need to have short-term disability insurance in place before conceiving for it to be effective.
Also, there are a few financial things to take into account when calculating how much bring home income you will receive from short-term disability insurance.
First, week one after delivering your baby you do not get short-term disability insurance. It does not kick in until week two. Second, you get six weeks short-term disability for a vaginal delivery and eight weeks for a cesarean, but you only get paid for five weeks and seven weeks, respectively. Third, figure out how much your short-term disability check will actually be. When I received my first short-term disability payment, it was lower than I expected. I thought I would get 60% of my bring home paycheck.
For example, if I made $1500 every two weeks and paid $200 for insurance and $300 for taxes, my usual bring home check would be $1000. I thought 60% of this, $600, should be my short-term disability payment, but it wasn’t. So where did I go wrong?
Here’s the math.
$1500 x 60% = $900
Less insurance $200
Less taxes ($300 x 60%) =$180 roughly
Actual bring home = $520
Insurance, flexible spending accounts and other paycheck deductions are not decreased by the 60% payout. So your short-term disability paycheck will be lower than 60% of your usual paycheck, if you have any of these types of deductions.
I hope this information helped you. I will continue to write on ways to mitigate costs and grow wealth. Have a great day!
For financial reasons, this is great. It gives many women a choice over when to get pregnant. I’ll write on financial planning for IVF and other pregnancy options later on.
Why is this important financially? Three big reasons, medical insurance deductible, FMLA, and short-term disability insurance.
First, most medical insurance deductibles reset in January, while others reset at other times in the year. Being able to conceive in three months, gives women the option to plan their entire pregnancy under one deductible. For example, if you wanted to have a baby in 2015 and you have a calendar year medical deductible, you could get pregnant between November 2014 through March 2015 and almost all your costs would go toward one deductible during 2015.
Note that your first doctor appointment after conceiving is six weeks after you have a positive pregnancy test.
If you have a high deductible, like 5,000 or 10,000, this is well worth planning out.
Second, FMLA lets you take off twelve weeks of leave from your employer without repercussions. To qualify for FMLA, you need to work for your employer for twelve months before taking leave. For more information on the exact rules, go here. http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/benefits-leave/fmla.htm
Third, short-term disability is usually provided through your employer and will pay you 60% of your income while you are out on leave. Most policies have a 9-10 month probation period, which means you need to have short-term disability insurance in place before conceiving for it to be effective.
Also, there are a few financial things to take into account when calculating how much bring home income you will receive from short-term disability insurance.
First, week one after delivering your baby you do not get short-term disability insurance. It does not kick in until week two. Second, you get six weeks short-term disability for a vaginal delivery and eight weeks for a cesarean, but you only get paid for five weeks and seven weeks, respectively. Third, figure out how much your short-term disability check will actually be. When I received my first short-term disability payment, it was lower than I expected. I thought I would get 60% of my bring home paycheck.
For example, if I made $1500 every two weeks and paid $200 for insurance and $300 for taxes, my usual bring home check would be $1000. I thought 60% of this, $600, should be my short-term disability payment, but it wasn’t. So where did I go wrong?
Here’s the math.
$1500 x 60% = $900
Less insurance $200
Less taxes ($300 x 60%) =$180 roughly
Actual bring home = $520
Insurance, flexible spending accounts and other paycheck deductions are not decreased by the 60% payout. So your short-term disability paycheck will be lower than 60% of your usual paycheck, if you have any of these types of deductions.
I hope this information helped you. I will continue to write on ways to mitigate costs and grow wealth. Have a great day!
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